The game of Liar's Dice is a variation on the dice game commonly known as Bluff Dice or Blind Man's Bluff. The game is capable of becoming a very popular one, by virtue of its portability and its interest to players over a wide age spread. There are, however, certain requirements of the game per se which have not been adequately met by available apparatus for playing the game, so that its popularity to date has been somewhat limited.
Among these peculiarities of the game is the fact that a group of five dice must be shaken and must then be capable of being visible to the player who has shaken them but not to any of the other players. As well, it is necessary to be able to isolate from among the dice one or more of them which will then not be shaken with a subsequent dice shake but which must be isolated from the view of players other than the player who so isolated the dice.
Apparatus essentially in the form of boxes have been devised which accomplish the objective of isolating one or more dice from the shaken dice. The means for isolating the dice has generally taken the form of a shelf placed within a box and in such a position relative to the top of the box that the lid of the box when in place will prevent any dice placed on the shelf from being overturned or from sliding along the shelf during a subsequent shake of the remaining dice in the box.
Since the dice on the shelf must be kept out of the view of other players, there was substantial difficulty in transferring such dice from the main compartment of the box to the shelf and then getting the lid in place without those dice being seen by other players. This has generally been accomplished by opening the box to the minimum degree and sliding one's fingers into the box to make the transfer.
This has been unsatisfactory both from the point of view of being able to see clearly the dice in the box and being able to easily transfer the dice from the main compartment to the shelf.
Furthermore, games tend to be played in the evening when light is not at its best or, in the case of the highly portable Liar's Dice game, as well in public transportation waiting areas and the like. In all of these cases the lighting tends to be inadequate in that many modern homes utilize lamps rather than ceiling fixtures for most lighting and in that lighting in public areas tends to be subdued. This creates a substantial difficulty in the case of the present game, since it is necessary to open the box or similar apparatus to a limited extent only, in order to prevent other players from viewing the dice within the box. This combination of factors leads to the problem that it is often difficult to readily view the dice within the box. The consequent eye strain builds up over a period of time and tends to mitigate against the playing of the game.
The present invention is aimed at an apparatus which overcomes these problems by providing in one embodiment a means for preventing other players from viewing the interior of the apparatus and in another embodiment integral means for illuminating the interior of the apparatus.